This summer has been filled with interesting and exciting seminars by many of the interesting Duke faculty. For me one of the most interesting speakers was Dr. Christopher Kontos. I found both his career path and his research very interesting, I found how even though he choose not to peruse a path as an MD-Ph.D like his father the still ended up doing very meaningful research in addition to being a very skilled clinician. I feel that he really exemplifies what is it to be a physician scientist in my eyes because it is really the integration of the two fields that brings a new dynamic to medicine. It clear that a career path is not always what you would call a straight shot, in contrast it can take many deviations or even complete changes.
In addition his work with angiogenesis innovative and cutting edge. This is the part of science that has always interested me the most when you get to discover new things that no one has know about before. To be a leader in discovery is one of the most exciting positions you can be in. His discoveries that certain angiopoietins can not only be essential early on in development but detrimental to an organism later on is ground breaking. This is the kind of work that one day eliminate cardiovascular disease.
